Online Grocer Delivers Local and Organic Produce Door-to-Door

This Cyber Monday consider purchasing local produce, organic dairy, baked goods and more. Part farmer’s market and part healthy grocery store on wheels, Spud offers food shopping conveniently brought from farm to your table. Located in several cities along the west coast, delivery is free (actually 22 cents on the bill goes to offset carbon emissions) to save you time and gas.

This full-service grocer serves the Vancouver region and Calgary in Canada and in the US has outlets in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and LA County. Spud connects with local farmers and food producers, providing organic produce and fresh artisan goods for customers. If in Seattle, for instance, vendors include Nash’s Organic Produce in Sequim, Washington, and Café Ladro coffee, an indie coffee roaster in the city. In Los Angeles, one of the produce suppliers is Stehly Farm Organics in Bonsall, north of San Diego, and La Brea Bakery breads.

I'd thought online grocers went the way of the dot.com bubble burst in the 1990s but discovered this company at a booth at the recent Opportunity Green conference. This cyber supermarket was founded in 1997 as a sustainable grocery, around the time online grocers, like WebVan expected to transform food shopping but went belly up. Spud survived, specializing in organic and local food.

- Organic beets and carrots from local farms to your table.

The site features 100-mile diet products, Fair Trade goods, discounts for case orders, weekly seasonal specials (one pound of organic carrots for $1.29), links to local vendors – products come from within 500 miles of its warehouses. Its Fresh Harvest Box offers organic fruits and vegetables tailored to personal preferences; just order in advance of the weekly delivery day (it's Wednesday in my town).

Food items are described in-depth: beets contain iron, phosphorus, sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium. There are also cooking instructions, storage and preparation tips, health info and descriptions of the source farm. Plus recipes, like Vegan Chocolate Cake with Zucchini.

As part of its sustainability efforts, Spud also collects and reuses difficult-to-recycle items through TerraCycle's Brigades collection programs. Items are recovered and upcycled into consumer products like toys and office supplies.